Catch & Release (3 page)

But there will be evidence if the historian knows where to look.

It's going to be easy to see the tracks of the flesh-eating monster in the win-loss record for the year. And the section of black-bordered pages in the yearbook is a
dead
giveaway.

I'm in the yearbook too—just check the index. There are a lot of page numbers after “Furnas, Polly” because I was a very busy person. I also really liked to have my picture taken.

“Estes, Odd” has even more numbers after his name—what with the rising sports-star thing. I don't know if he likes having his picture taken, but he has one of those camera-loves-it faces.

He is not immediately repulsive.

But he's got problems.

We all have problems.

And, like I didn't have enough already, Odd showed up.

 

“How do I look? Be honest. My mom's not being honest.”

“You sure?”

“I need to know.”

He took a second.

“You look like a mummy.”

I put my hand up to my face. Of course, the bandages. He doesn't have X-ray vision. He can't see through that wad of gauze and goo.

“Welcome to the twenty-first century, Tut. See you around.” I could hear the crutch-slipper shuffle as Odd left my room and moved down the hospital hallway.

 

Odd stopped by a couple times a day after that, during little breaks from practicing walking up and down the short hall in the quarantine unit.

The visits were always short. He was just taking a breather while he worked to get strong again. They promised he'd get a new, high-tech foot as soon as he was strong enough, and he wanted it. The crutches were just temporary. The robot leg, that was the future.

Nobody promised me a robot eye.

 

We never mentioned that we were in the hospital, or why, or that we had never been friends outside of the quarantine ward. It should be obvious why we didn't talk about MRSA. As for why we hadn't been friends before, that is simple: I'm a graduating senior, and he was going to be a junior in the fall. Both of us had other, better, options in the friend department. Until we got stranded in quarantine, that is.

After a few dead-end convos full of long, uncomfortable silences, we found out we had one thing in common. We both like to fish. Neither of us is obsessed or anything, but the occasional day on the river or a spring creek—we're down. So we talked about fishing.

The day I got the letter from Bridger explaining that he understood how I needed time and space to heal . . . and so he wanted to do the right thing . . . and so we would kind of take a little break as far as our relationship . . . and so he wouldn't be coming home for the summer because he was going to go to Portland to work for his uncle . . . kind of like an internship. The day I got
that
letter, Odd and I talked about fishing. The day I had the video-consult with the plastic surgeon and learned that it might be possible to do some more reconstruction and scar revision in the future, but not soon, Odd and I talked about fishing. The day I got my provisional diploma in a manila envelope and realized I would never be joining my friends when they moved the tassels on their caps from right to left, Odd was with me. We talked about fishing.

Odd was released from the hospital a few days before me. He wasn't there to hear the smattering of applause from the nurses when the orderly wheeled me out of the quarantine unit. I could have walked—I'd been getting up and pacing the halls for days—but it's hospital policy. So they rolled me down the wide hall and into the elevator and out the doors, past the oversized aquarium full of not-very-healthy-looking rainbow trout to the passenger pick-up zone. The sunshine was very bright. The world looked funny. My mom marched along beside my wheelchair, clutching a red-white-and-blue Mylar balloon in one hand and stack of disposable bedpans in the other. The bedpans were unnecessary. I'd been able to get up and walk to the toilet for weeks. They were also a very bad sign that my mom wasn't ready for any of this.

 

My happiness is essential to my mom's happiness. There is nothing weird about that. As long as my perfect future was moving along on schedule, we were both fine.

We had always been close. She supported me in all my extra-curriculars. She was my number-one fan who attended every play, every recital, every game (even though I was only there myself to sell pop and crap at the refreshment booth). But during the hospital stay, while I was delirious and tippy-toeing toward death, she morphed into a mom-bot. When I got home, she followed me into the bathroom—just to make sure I'd be OK. She hovered over my shoulder while I spooned up applesauce and chicken-noodle soup, which was always my favorite—when I was five. And I let her, because it was just easier. She quit her job and spent all her time taking care of me. She became my parasitic twin, or I became hers. Same difference.

 

A couple of days after I got home, I took the mirrored door off the medicine cabinet in my bathroom. What was the point of looking in the mirror while I brushed my teeth? Or after I washed my face? It isn't like I needed it to put on mascara. Just trying that would probably leave me blind in the only eye I have left. So I got a screwdriver and adapted my environment to my new condition, as was suggested by some handouts I received in the hospital.

One of the screws fell in the sink, and I knocked it into the drain because I still don't know how to reach for things, exactly. I was still in the process of developing coping skills and new strategies for my new condition like the rehab handouts said I needed to do. Then, when I was taking the mirror downstairs to stash it in the basement storage closet, I heard my mom in her room.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed with a wad of soggy tissue pressed over her nose, crying. So I sat down beside her, and we hugged each other like two stray kittens drowning in a flood. We were there for I don't know how long; then, when we were both starting to be able to breathe without little sniffling sounds, Mom said, “Do you want to watch
The View
with me, babykid?”

 

That's how I ended up on the couch with the clicker in my hand. It turns out, unlike playing ping-pong or putting on mascara, a person only needs one eye to watch TV. The TV never blinks or looks away. It accepts a person unconditionally and is generous with its love—all it asks for is a little bit of attention in return. My mom came and sat beside me during
The View
. I laid my head in her lap—good face up—and she stroked my hair. Then, when lady-TV was over, I rested my head on a pillow with my scar side up and watched monster movies. Between ladies and monsters I was learning a lot about myself.

A few months later, Odd Estes showed up in the middle of
Mega Shark vs. Giant Squid
and said, “You want to go fishing?”

I stood up, wearing the flannel underpants of the guy who didn't love me forever and ever after all, and I said, “Yes.”

It was not the last of my bad choices.

I am ready and waiting to go at the butt-crack of dawn.

I have my rod and vest. I checked on the local hatches and fly-pattern advice online last night. I have the right bugs in my flybook—probably. I don't know for sure where we are going. I have a little blue cooler full of peanut-butter sandwiches, snak-paks of applesauce, and three bottles of iced tea. Thanks, Mom.